They’re here.

The Witch of Roberni.

Isaac never expected her to attack today. On a full moon night, no less, when the Prince didn’t even have the witch’s heart and eyes prepared.

Just then, the door to the reception room opened. The person who walked in, drawing their attention, was the Chamberlain of the Blue Shadow Palace. The man who had served the Prince ever since he returned from the borderlands to the capital.

“YOU MUSTN’T COME IN—”

Isaac tried to yell frantically, but the words died in his throat when he saw the Chamberlain’s dead, unfocused eyes as his head jerked in a bizarre, mechanical direction, as if searching for something…….Oh my god.

The Chamberlain’s glass-like eyes fixed on the Prince. The footsteps walking straight toward him moved like a broken, creaking machine. Upon seeing the Chamberlain, the Prince tore down the heavy window curtain and threw it over the man, simultaneously swinging his sword. The Chamberlain’s neck was cleaved cleanly along with the curtain. Blood geysered up, and the curtain instantly burned pitch black.

“What kind of…… horrific…….”

Isaac muttered without realizing it. From beneath the sprawling hem of the curtain, the Chamberlain’s head had rolled out. It spasmed violently in agony for a long time, as if it were still alive, before finally stopping.

Right then.

The entire building lurched violently, as if an earthquake had struck.

The ground bucked so wildly that they almost lost their footing, yet not a single object on the table or bookshelves fell; they remained firmly anchored in place. Crash, smash! The deafening sound of shattering glass echoed everywhere, yet the windows, violently rattling in their frames, remained perfectly intact without a single crack.

The earthquake stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and in the sudden, eerie silence that followed, it seemed nothing inside the room had changed. However, Isaac soon realized the most terrifying change of all.

He couldn’t see outside the window. It was as if someone had smeared thick black mud over the glass; the windows were entirely blacked out. The courtyard outside, the full moon in the night sky—everything was obliterated by pitch darkness.

A barrier.

This space, likely the entire Blue Shadow Palace, had been enveloped in a massive barrier, completely severed from the outside world.

Isaac looked back at the Prince. The moment Isaac’s eyes fell upon the Prince’s arm as he flicked the blood from his sword, his face contorted in horror. The arm slashed by the maid’s knife had swollen grotesquely, turning a sickening black.

“PRINCE KYAN……!”

Isaac rushed over to him and blindly grabbed whatever he could—a torn cord that had hung from the ripped curtain—and tied it tightly above the wound as a tourniquet. Even before the Prince, looking down at Isaac, could open his mouth to speak, the reception room doors burst open again. And people began to file inside.

It was as if every single person in the Blue Shadow Palace was swarming in. Crossing the threshold with bizarre, sluggish movements, every last one of them looked around with dead, unfocused eyes until they spotted the Prince. Then, they began to advance toward him.

Every single face was familiar.

They were all people who worked in the Blue Shadow Palace.

Some had only started working there a few days ago; others had served the Prince for a very long time. Some were just there to kill time and earn a wage; others were deeply loyal to him. There were people Isaac had only exchanged a few greetings with, and people he had spoken with at length so many times they knew each other well.

And now, all of them, wearing expressions as blank as hollowed-out mechanical dolls, were converging on this room, their veins filled with poison instead of blood. Among the young maids with softer skin, the toxicity of their own blood was so potent that it was weeping through their pores like a festering rash.

The sheer atrocity of it.

“——.”

Isaac clenched his teeth. He bit down hard on his trembling jaw and whispered to the cats, who were standing on the windowsill with their fur completely puffed up in terror.

“How do I turn those people back?”

『You can’t. It’s too late.』

『Their blood has already been entirely replaced by poison. Their internal organs are already rotting from it. There’s nothing you can do.』

Isaac lost his words.

All those people. All those many people who had worked for the Prince in the Blue Shadow Palace. All of them.

No longer possessing any remaining sanity, they lunged blindly toward the Prince. The Prince, watching them with an utterly expressionless face, raised his sword. *Drip, drop.* As drops of poisoned blood fell from his blade, and just as he was about to swing his sword…

“——I will do it.”

Isaac grabbed the Prince’s arm. In the split second the Prince stopped moving and looked at him, Isaac plunged his own sword into the closest servant who was lunging forward. The moment the blade buried itself deep into the servant’s heart, the servant’s body convulsed wildly, thrashing for a few moments before collapsing. From the wound where the blade was pulled out, a sickeningly thick clump of hardening black blood pushed its way out, burning the body itself.

Isaac stepped up, practically shielding the front of the Prince, and began to cut down the slowly approaching people one by one. He slashed, stabbed, and cleaved. With every strike, the people fell away like rotting straw.

“Step aside. They are not even a threat.”

The Prince spoke from behind him. The faintly cold edge to his voice was due to his displeasure at handing over his own fight to someone else. Yet Isaac did not step aside. He didn’t even look back.

“I will do it. Do not lay a hand on them, Your Highness.”

“Step aside. I will not tell you a third time.”

“Are these not the people who worked for you, Your Highness?”

Isaac’s resolute voice was suppressed incredibly low. He sounded as if he might break down crying, howl in grief, or scream at the top of his lungs at any given second.

The Prince shut his mouth. Isaac, his own jaw clamped tight, simply continued to cut down the rushing masses, over and over again.

It wasn’t difficult. Most of them were just maids and servants. There were royal guards mixed in, but they were not in their right minds. They didn’t use profound magic or execute devastating attacks; they simply swung daggers or clubs clumsily before being effortlessly butchered by Isaac, falling away as easily as dead weeds.

They were just dying. Left to be slaughtered. The very people who served the Prince by his side, made to die by his hand.

The absolute cruelty of it.

“——.”

Isaac pressed his lips tightly together to hold back a groan. The grip on his sword-hand tightened painfully.

After ruthlessly cutting through the relentless wave of people pouring into the reception room, Isaac slammed the doors shut and bolted them. The ones outside who hadn’t made it in frantically pounded on the doors trying to break through, but even those sounds gradually faded away. Unable to withstand the poison eating away at their own bodies, they were dying right outside the threshold. Through the gap under the door, black blood seeped in, carrying a putrid, sickening stench.

As if to guard the tightly locked doors even more fiercely, Isaac blocked it with his own body. At his feet lay the very last person to enter the room before the doors were shut, the very last person he had cut down……. the middle-aged woman—Natasha. Her corpse, dyed a grotesque, necrotic black, was emitting noxious smoke from every single orifice. It had transformed into something entirely unrecognizable from the kind-hearted woman Isaac had been chatting with just a few hours ago.

The only people left alive in the room were the Prince and Isaac. And the corpses piled haphazardly across the floor.

The Prince slowly surveyed the room before finally looking at Isaac. Leaning his back heavily against the door, Isaac looked as though he were about to cry.

Just as the Prince, staring quietly at Isaac, opened his mouth to speak.

*RUMBLE——* The floor violently vibrated with a deep, heavy tremor.

From the corpses burning away in poison, the noxious smoke began to pool and rise. The smoke grew rapidly, thickening until it started to spiral and swirl violently in the air, gradually taking a specific shape. It was the size of a human, the shape of a human. The mass of smoke slowly descended from the air and landed a few steps in front of the Prince. Then, it began to take on a clearer, more distinct form.

Eventually, the mass of smoke took on the exact appearance of a person.

The figure standing face-to-face with the Prince looked exactly like him, as if reflecting him in a mirror.

The Prince’s facial features, his clothes, even the shape of his arm, swollen tight with spreading poison, were perfectly identical. It looked exactly as though it had molded itself from the Prince standing right there. The only difference was the faint, eerie smile plastered on its face.

That smile gradually deepened. The figure of the Prince, its mouth curling upward as if its face was tearing, let out a burst of maniacal, ecstatic laughter.

『Magnificent, truly magnificent…..!』

The voice, echoing as if ringing directly inside their eardrums, laughed like a madman.

『I didn’t realize a witch was such a spectacular thing. To think I could overflow with this much power! Magic is surging through me, so much that I can’t even contain it!』

The figure of the Prince looked down at its own body. As if its true body, somewhere far away, were doing the exact same thing. Its eyes gleaming with manic joy, the corners of its mouth stretched terrifyingly wide, it bore the exact face of the Prince, yet the expression overlaid upon it belonged to someone else entirely.

That man. The young wizard.

『If I had known the power of a witch was this incredible, I would have done this from the very beginning. I should have killed that old man much sooner and transferred this woman into my body. To think I left such an incredible vessel with that old fool for so long.』

The figure’s thinly trembling lips tore into a long, ecstatic grin. Then, the figure suddenly looked at the real Prince standing before it. The laughter washed off its face entirely.

Staring at the Prince with a bleak, sinister face, the figure suddenly twisted its face into a grotesque sneer and offered a highly exaggerated, mocking bow.

『It has been a while, Your Highness. Have you been well?』

The Prince stared expressionlessly at the figure that looked exactly like him. The bowing figure raised its head and smirked.

『Do you like this face?』

As it spoke, the figure deliberately dragged its fingernails down its own face. Five deep gashes were carved into the visage identical to the Prince’s. The Prince merely watched it with apathy, while the figure burst into maniacal laughter, acting as if it found this entirely too amusing.

『Do you know who I am? No, surely Your noble Highness couldn’t possibly remember someone as lowly as me, right?』

The figure deliberately drooped its eyebrows in a pathetic display, yet its lips were twisted into a mocking smile. Watching the display without a change in expression, the Prince languidly opened his mouth.

“You ask if I remember you, yet you don’t appear in your own form. Is it because you’re missing an arm?”

In an instant, the smile vanished from the figure’s face as if washed away. Its visage contorted terrifyingly like a demon, its bulging eyes turning pitch-black as they glared at the Prince.

Then, suddenly, the figure bared its teeth. With a face that made it impossible to tell if it was smiling or grimacing, it muttered darkly.

『Right. You cut off my arm. I, who was perfect and flawless from the moment I was born——you turned me into a laughingstock. But thanks to that, I obtained something even better. The desire to curse you…… and the power of this witch…..!』

The figure let out a ferocious laugh. The air violently vibrated, threatening to burst their eardrums. The entire room filled with its wicked laughter.

Suddenly, the figure craned its neck. Its neck stretched out like a snake, thrusting its face right in front of the Prince’s nose. The figure whispered low.

『I heard you went around looking for a witch? Did you want to break the curse? Oh, how pitiful.』

Feigning sorrow, the figure tilted its head and sighed.

『A life cursed from birth. What a miserable, pathetic existence. And now, for all eternity, no matter what methods you try, you will never be able to escape this curse—.』

The low whisper morphed into a sinister laugh. The snake-like neck retracted back into place, letting out a long laugh while exuding a chillingly evil aura.

At that moment.

“How tedious.”

The Prince, who had been silently watching it, muttered.

The moment that low, idle whisper slipped out, the figure’s laughter abruptly stopped. Facing the figure that was now glaring at him with a terrifyingly stiff expression, the Prince spoke languidly.

“Unless it’s a day like today when the witch’s consciousness sinks, you are less than a bug, incapable of using your own body or even your own consciousness by your own will. Listening to the babbling of such a creature is nothing but tedious. Is that cliché story all you have?”

If so, there’s nothing more to hear. Muttering this, the Prince slashed his sword downwards. It looked slow, but in reality, it was terrifyingly fast and unavoidable, aiming to cleave the figure in half. However—

*Clang!*

With an ear-grating screech of metal, the Prince’s sword stopped mid-air.

The figure, wearing the exact same appearance and clothes as the Prince, had drawn a sword and blocked the Prince’s blade.

The Prince slightly raised an eyebrow. Seeing the faint glint of surprise in his eyes, the figure smirked.

『Surprised? I bet you are. This body is a manifestation that perfectly mimics its opponent. Not just the appearance, but the strength, the abilities—everything matches. The stronger you are, the stronger this form becomes; the faster you are, the faster it gets. How about it? Not so tedious anymore, is it?』

As soon as it finished speaking, the figure launched the first attack. The Prince hurriedly parried, blocking it ‘barely’—a stark contrast to his usual self. But no sooner had he blocked it than the figure unleashed a relentless barrage of attacks, which the Prince deflected in succession. 

Seeing the Prince seemingly pushed on the defensive was both shocking and deeply unfamiliar. The figure was driving him back with the exact same level of strength and skill as the Prince himself.

In a flash, wounds began to multiply on the Prince’s body. They were roughly equivalent to the damage the Prince was inflicting on the figure.

Like two terrifying beasts that were never meant to cross paths violently tearing into one another, it was a sight that chilled the very core of one’s heart just to watch.

For the first time, a glimmer akin to surprise surfaced on the Prince’s indifferent face. And that surprise gradually morphed into something else. Excitement.

『You’re enjoying this.』

The figure suddenly said.

『You’re happy to have finally met an opponent upon whom you can fully unleash your madness-laced bloodlust. Reveling in the stench of blood, wanting to keep pain and screams close to your side—if this isn’t a monster, what is!』

The figure roared, its voice booming.

『You, cursed from birth, you should never have been brought into this world! You will live your entire life in absolute solitude—without family, without friends, without followers, without anyone—until you die of exhaustion. Look around you. Is there anything beside you but piles of corpses?!』

The figure was laughing. Its mouth, torn almost to its ears, spewed curses like poison as it laughed. It was no longer human. Having assimilated with the witch, it had become an entity where demonic nature had completely consumed its humanity.

With every clash, deep and shallow wounds were etched into both the Prince’s and the figure’s bodies. A perfect stalemate. As time passed and the tip of the Prince’s sword dulled by a fraction, the figure’s blade dulled by the exact same amount. A deathmatch where neither could win nor lose dragged on, until the Prince’s entire body was covered in wounds.

『You cannot defeat this body. Though this body may not be able to defeat you either, there is still a long time left before the night ends. Enough time for you to exhaust your strength, collapse in a bloody heap, and lose your life.』

Just as the figure flashed its teeth in a grin, its pitch-black eyes gleaming. That was when.

“Then you can fight me.”

It was Isaac who lunged from behind the figure, slashing his sword downwards.

Even against the surprise attack, the figure leisurely turned and blocked the blade. However, the moment their swords clashed with a loud *Clang——,* the sword held by the figure trembled minutely. Its defense, now perfectly rebalanced to match Isaac’s level of strength, became incomparably heavier and slower than its movements just seconds prior.

Realizing this itself, the figure distorted its face. The face of the figure confronting Isaac instantly morphed and melted like clay, shifting halfway into Isaac’s appearance.

『YOU——.』

Isaac continuously swung his sword at the figure, who shouted roughly in apparent panic. The figure parried the attacks with a bewildered look and counterattacked, which Isaac also blocked. With a strength that was neither greater nor lesser than the other’s.

“You’re better off fighting me. If you’re at the level where you have to fight me evenly,”

Isaac muttered bluntly. His gaze was directed over the figure’s shoulder, right at the Prince who was charging in from behind.

“You won’t be able to handle Prince Kyan.”

At that exact moment, the Prince’s sword fell upon the figure’s head. From the crown of its head down to its groin, the blade cleaved the figure’s torso perfectly in two.

A sound like shattering glass echoed from nowhere.

The air whipped around as if exploding, and the room violently quaked and shook. The windows rattled and vibrated intensely, until suddenly, the pitch-black void covering the glass vanished, revealing the night sky and the full moon outside once more. The barrier had been broken.

『YOU——.』

The figure mumbled. Though it still maintained a humanoid shape, it had reverted to a mass of clumped smoke, its eyes, nose, and mouth entirely blurred. Those hollowed-out eye sockets stared piercingly at Isaac.

『You are…… right, you were the one standing next to him when my arm was cut off. The Prince’s so-called escort. But why… why were you not caught in my magic despite being inside the barrier? Why didn’t the blood in your body turn into poison and kill you?』

“You, more wicked and cruel than a witch. You should never have been unleashed upon the world.”

Isaac spoke quietly. Then, he mercilessly slashed the figure with his sword. The figure seemed to split in half and scatter, but it merely wavered as smoke before coalescing back into a single mass.

“You have already caused so many to die. I must find you before you cause any more harm,” Isaac said, looking at the figure.

At that, the figure’s face gradually contorted into a demonic, upward-stretching sneer. A hideous, smiling face.

『You? Find me?』

Maniacal laughter erupted. The deafening sound that shook the very air dragged on for a long time. Then, abruptly, the figure craned its neck and thrust its head right in front of Isaac. The eye sockets curved thinly into a smile.

『Do you think you can find me? When absolutely no one has been able to track my whereabouts? Even today, I only appeared because this witch fell asleep; usually, her consciousness suppresses me. And this woman intends to stay hidden until the Great New Moon passes.』

The figure snickered. Mocking Isaac, who merely stared at it in silence, the figure whispered thinly.

『Besides, you’re about to die right now anyway.』

With those words, the figure collapsed. The humanoid shape crumbled, and the billowing smoke instantly enveloped Isaac, seeping into his eyes, his nose, his mouth—every single orifice of his body.

『HAHAHAHAHAHA! ESCORT, since I have now borrowed your body, let us offer one final act of loyalty to the Prince you have served thus far. He is one who enjoys blood and flesh, so this time, you must offer yours.』

The figure laughed from within Isaac’s body. With the sound pounding wildly in his head, Isaac looked back at the Prince. The Prince was looking at Isaac with a faint frown. On his normally expressionless, sunken face, only that creased brow stood out as different from usual.

“Do not point your sword at me.”

The Prince said.

If an opponent pointed a blade at him, he would undoubtedly cut them down. Has that man ever given a warning beforehand like this? Isaac stared silently at the Prince before dropping his gaze. Then, he turned his eyes to his surroundings.

The expansive reception room, packed with the dead. He swept his eyes over the corpses draped over the sofa and sprawled across the floor, one by one. Then, looking at the Prince, Isaac spoke like a sigh.

“I will not point my sword at you.….. I never have, and I never will.”

At that frail whisper, the Prince briefly raised an eyebrow. Just then.

『What an admirable escort. Such a deeply loyal servant surely deserves the honor of dying by the Prince’s own hand. Don’t you agree, Your Highness?』

A voice dripping with sarcasm spilled from Isaac’s lips. Along with it, Isaac’s hand firmly gripped his sword and raised it, standing to face the Prince.

The Prince looked at Isaac expressionlessly. Isaac looked at the Prince as well. Holding the sword, Isaac’s expression was heavy and somber, making the snickering laughter crawling up from the depths of his throat feel incredibly grotesque and out of place.

『Now, go, escort. You who merely watched as my arm was severed, now you shall watch as your own head is cut off.』

The voice, filled with manic glee, shouted. The one who could never die or get hurt from this was laughing as he peered into this gruesome scene from far away. Having created this horrific atrocity. If he escaped from here now, there was no telling when he would return, or if they would ever be able to find him.

『GO! I SAID GO!!』

Confusion mixed into the voice badgering Isaac. As if this body wasn’t moving according to his will, the bewildered voice grew vicious.

“I will find you…… Even if I cannot find you myself, I will secure a clue so that your location will be known.”

『You——You——are——.』

The voice warped grotesquely. High pitches, low pitches, thick humming sounds, thin shrieking sounds—they all blended together, echoing from near and far as if tearing through every corner of Isaac’s body. Then, all of a sudden, the voice cut off entirely. Soon after—

『You…… you aren’t human.』

The terrifyingly feral voice muttered. Like a sound rising from the absolute bottom of hell, the voice resonated thicker and deeper.

『Not human. Something that isn’t human has been living mingled among humans. You——why does something that isn’t even human stand beside a human?! YOU CHILD OF A WITCH!』

The voice boomed as if echoing inside a cave.

And then——Isaac, while still looking at the Prince, while staring straight at the Prince whose eyebrows twitched ever so faintly and whose eyes glowed with a chilling blue light as he stared back at Isaac… flipped the grip on the handle of his sword.

Watching the Prince’s face freeze coldly the moment he saw that, Isaac plunged the blade into his own heart, as if severing all hesitation.

*Thrust.*

The sensation of the blade piercing through thick muscle felt incredibly foreign. The chilling feeling of something horrifyingly cold burrowing into his body. Accompanied by a suffocating, breathless agony.

『――.』

The smoke that had seeped into every corner of his body thrashed violently. In an instant, the smoke billowing out of his entire body like mist took on a reddish hue.

*Ba-dump. Ba-dump.* It was the first time he had felt the sensation of his own heart beating so vividly. Feeling his heart pound even harder, crying out in pain as if refusing to let life stop, Isaac, dripping in a heavy cold sweat, gripped the sword handle. Then, squeezing his eyes shut, he yanked the blade out.

Blood sprayed from his heart. The writhing smoke endlessly pouring out of Isaac’s body grew darker. The sound of the figure screaming echoed fuzzily, but he couldn’t make it out. [KYAUUU——] He heard the sharp, screeching yowl of a cat.

Isaac lifted his head. For some reason, his eyes burned intensely. Perhaps due to the cold sweat, in his blurring vision, he thought he saw a beast casting a shadow as massive as a tiger lunging at him. As he was knocked backward by the beast charging with flashing eyes, Isaac’s gaze snagged on the man standing a few steps away. 

The Prince. The Prince was looking at him. His exceptionally bright blue eyes watched Isaac without a single twitch, as if frozen in place. That still-expressionless face was somehow different from usual, though he couldn’t tell what exactly was different.

His heart beat violently. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to stop like this. It seemed to be pleading. However, more than the beating of his heart, it was his eyes that were stripping away his consciousness. His eyes felt like they were on fire. Isaac groaned, clutching his eyes as if he were trying to tear them out.

Something flickered beneath his eyelids. As if seeing something through another person’s eyes, a wavering field of vision overlapped with his own.

——Ah. The capital. Like stars neatly arranged over a pitch-black cloth, he was looking down at the night view of the capital city. As if viewing it from some tall spire on the outskirts of the capital. He could see the spire of Atone Square nearby. If so, then this place is……

『Child of a witch, what are you looking at?!』

That was when. A thunderous roar tore through his eardrums. As Isaac snapped his eyes open reflexively, what he saw before him was the ceiling of the Blue Shadow Palace reception room where he lay. The blood-red smoke was constantly changing shapes as it hovered over Isaac’s head.

And the next thing he saw were the small beasts sitting on his chest, shoving their heads deep into the stab wound and frantically licking it. Paying no mind to the blood smearing all over their faces and whiskers, the beasts stuck their tongues all the way down to his heart, lapping it up. Normally, they would be chattering away, calling him ‘Manbang-ah, you pathetic fool,’ but they were entirely focused on moving their tongues without a single word.

“…… You are near the West Gate. Not far from Atone Square……”

Isaac mumbled haltingly through lips that had gone stark white, devoid of blood. In that instant, the smoke seemed to freeze. Right after—

『BE CURSED…..!』

The smoke roared ferociously and swelled madly. Staring with fading eyes at the smoke growling as it took the shape of a massive giant, Isaac spoke.

“I will find you. No matter where you are, I will find you without fail and make you pay for your sins.”

『A bastard whose breath is about to stop and plunge into hell is babbling nonsense!』

“Even if my breath stops, my eyes will reflect where you are.”

『Then I’ll just rip your eyeballs out!』

The smoke roared. Taking the shape of a horned demon, the smoke lunged at Isaac. Hook-like, long, jagged claws darted down to gouge out Isaac’s eyes.

Just then.

『――.』

Suddenly, the smoke stopped as if struck by lightning. The Prince was standing between them.

Standing directly in front of Isaac as if shielding him, the Prince had shoved his fist into the smoke’s massive gaping mouth. As he opened his fist buried deep within the smoke, something round and glossy like a pearl remained inside. That brilliantly shining, dazzling object was something Isaac had seen before. A crystal of sacred silver, consecrated for a long time. A holy relic that repelled all evil in the world.

The smoke shrieked. The entire air quaked, ringing so loudly his head felt like it would split. The smoke began to dissipate like mist.

The smoke that had been as massive as a giant shrank in an instant, until eventually, only a fist-sized clump remained. The tightly condensed, blood-red clump slowly, very slowly, faded away as it wavered in the air.

『I will curse you. I will curse both of you. You will never escape this curse for the rest of your lives and will be forced to live within it forever.』

A voice full of rancor echoed and hummed. As the sound gradually seemed to drift further away, the clump of smoke also grew fainter and fainter. The bastard was fleeing.

“This time, we will be the ones to seek you out. We will find you soon enough, so you won’t have to wait long.”

The Prince said.

An ear-splitting roar shook the air one last time, and with that, the sound vanished. The clump of smoke also completely lost its light and melted into the air.

And only silence remained in that place. A profound, empty silence.

Outside the window, the full moon shone brightly in the night sky as if nothing had happened, and inside, there were no ominous presences or sounds. All that remained were Isaac lying in the dead center of the silence of those who had died a blackened death, and the Prince.

The Prince looked down at Isaac. Isaac was staring at the ceiling with blurry, unfocused eyes. His wildly thrashing heartbeat was beginning to slow. Was it because death was approaching, or perhaps……

Lying there like a broken doll with his eyes blankly open amidst his fading consciousness, Isaac was suddenly jerked upright because the Prince grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up. As Isaac blinked, trying to force his consciousness back, he shuddered violently at the pain of his neck being bitten into.

The Prince was tearing into Isaac’s neck. And swallowing the blood flowing from it. Gulp after gulp, continuously. As if confirming a taste from his memories. And then,

“…… Indeed.”

The Prince, slowly pulling his lips away, wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and looked down at Isaac.

“Now the pieces finally fit.”

…… Ah.

So in the end.

Isaac forced his dimming eyes wide open and looked at the Prince. Even in his wavering vision, what came clearly into focus were those blue eyes looking down at him. It was a gaze that was impossible to read, but one thing was certain. The secret Isaac had never wanted to reveal—he now knew it.

“…… The blood from my heart has covered the witch’s avatar, so now you will be able to see where the witch is through my eyes.”

Isaac whispered as he closed his eyes. He didn’t even have the strength to keep his eyes open anymore; squeezing out the absolute last of his energy to say those words was the most he could do.

Now, once his breath stopped, the Prince would carve out his eyes and use them to see the location where the witch was hiding. Then, he would finally be able to find the witch. Even though the life he had so desperately tried to preserve was ending here…… if he could at least be of help like this.

‘Ah, so this is how suddenly death approaches. Without having obtained a pretty wife, a pretty house, or a pretty flock of chickens. If he had known it would be like this, he would have raised some pretty chickens first.…..’

As he closed his eyes, a distant unconsciousness washed over him. Piercing through that unconsciousness, a voice suddenly rang out with sharp clarity.

“Yes. You look.”

It was an order. And at the same time, it was a declaration that he would absolutely make it so.

“See it for yourself with your own eyes, and tell me. You, who deceived and lied to me, will no longer be free even from death, so I will decide when you die. And today is not the day you die.”

The hand holding Isaac up slowly laid him back down. Lying flat on the floor once again, Isaac felt his consciousness rapidly fleeing. As if swapping places, in the pitch-black wave of unconsciousness rushing in,

“So you lot are those massive beasts. Very well, I will let you live for now as well. So finish closing his heart. Half of it has barely mended; the other half still remains. If you cannot save him, you will die as well.”

He heard the Prince speaking quietly. The beasts growled in their throats as if threatened. It was due to the chillingly cold killing intent laced within the Prince’s low voice.

Even as they raised their fur and made threatening sounds toward the Prince, the beasts hurriedly rushed back to Isaac, their rough tongues sweeping over his still-pounding heart that was spewing blood.

By that point, Isaac had no consciousness left. Completely drained of blood and unconscious, he looked no different from a dead man.

Over such an Isaac, a whisper like a soliloquy fell.

“You cannot die……. I will not let you.”

* * *

[Continued in Volume 3]